Perchance to Dream
by River in Flames
Summary: What strength lies in the dreams of Spiral Beings? What obstacles can they breach? The Dreamers are dreaming and the world is bending to them. Ancient, unimaginable things are stirring in the darkest dark, seeking this power. TTGL HP Lovecraft
1. Prologue

Perchance to Dream

Prologue

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing, end them...

To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause.

William Shakespeare

_Hamlet_

. . ._  
_

Beyond the twisting dark aether where grinning, mindless, lampoonic things lurked and watched; beyond heavy, condensed not-seas where vicious monstrosities feasted upon dying stars; beyond the monumental, loathsome black gates covered in sinuous shadows and crawling with nameless horrors she floated upon an endless void nameless, faceless, bodyless. She had no sight or hearing, no voice and no thought; she was nothingness. Within the nothing however she was she; that which was she was defined wholly by one wish, one desire, one burning, searing dream which would not depart though she had no lips to express it, no heart to which to hold it dear, no mind to comprehend it, no memories to sustain it. It was only a dream within a dream within a dream which was so large that it refused to die even when that which was she had stood before those horrid black gates. The gates had opened and she had passed through, but instead of falling downward into the bottomless destiny reserved for all things in this universe which have no given place she instead flew past them, past the bottomless It, past the deadlights at the edge of all things and beyond even that until she reached that place that she was at now, a place that was not a place. All that was in this place was the her that dreamed, nothing else.

The dream was of a nameless, faceless Other, some half-defined object which was not herself. She adored the Other automatically and sought it with determination and longing. From it she could feel a sensation that she could not understand but which filled her with elation anyway. She stretched into the darkness, pressing against it and through it searching for her desire but could not find it. She felt her painful separation from the Other was too harsh, too unjust, and her dream grew under her rapidly expanding desire.

She floated there for a time which made no difference to her, and her dream gathered and gathered until at last it shaped the wish inside into words which echoed into the infinite space around her. They echoed, but as yet they had no meaning, no coherence to any language known or unknown. They were simply words made up to express her dream.

As if in response to her mangled mind-voice the void shifted and swirled and suddenly there stretched before her a path of some sort, indescribable save that it was a path. The path was very short, and at the end of it was a staircase leading downward. She followed it without hesitation.

Down and down it spiraled into that night of night; one step, two steps, three steps; she impressed these steps upon herself, the first physical reference she could remember, all the way to the bottom, seventy steps in all. By now the appearance of the steps had driven a greater order into her and her words took on structure, still beyond her fractured comprehension but recognizable to any who might have ears to hear them with in this place; and indeed there were ears capable of hearing nearby. At the bottom of the steps she burst into an area which dazzled her so painfully that she drew back toward the darkness screeching in agony and desire.

_I WANT! _she screamed. _I WANT I WANT I WANT!_

From within the area where bright something danced and burned her fledgling sensibilities a voice which was not her own answered. "Turn back traveler. The way here is shut to one such as you."

The words were still unintelligible, but the meaning of them was somehow known to her and she shrieked in defiance. _I'LL GO I'LL GO! I WANT!_

Another voice answered. "You cannot pass, the way is shut. You have no place in this world or in the next. You should return from whence you came lest you perish here."

The entity which answered his warning did not understand what she said; the concept was still beyond her forming consciousness. The two in the brightly lit room understood perfectly however. They rocked backward under the force of it, their faces registering surprise for the first time that either could remember. The answering voice boomed in the enclosed space and though the words meant nothing the message could not be mistaken:

**IF I PERISH I PERISH!**

The two priests shook a little then as another long forgotten emotion welled within them: fear. Never before had a power such as this tread at their doorway and the thought of what conflict it might create disturbed their normally tranquil spirits greatly. They stood from their seats on the floor and responded as one, "If you insist upon passage then we will have to stop you by force!"

The dream was too large for her now, the painful need of it more acute than any threat of sensory overload posed by the bright area from which she had recently retreated. She swept into the cavern and past the two, bowling them over with her mere presence. The dancing light wreaked havoc on her, and the forms of the two made no sense to her. Ahead of her was another staircase, coolly dark, and she raced down it, one two three four five six seven one hundred two hundred seven hundred steps and then into a massive forest. The physicality of it nearly destroyed her and she cried out in distress. She could have simply been absorbed by the objects around her, lost in contemplation of their form for time immeasurable. Instead she flew over it, quickly, quickly, and there was the sensation of a great distance passing beneath her.

She flew over familiar seeming vistas, things which sparked recognition in her developing mind, but they were so confusing, so distracting that she banished away all contemplation of them. She flew and flew and presently found herself entering a terribly recognizable darkness. It was the dark of the same void which she had only so recently escaped; yet she flew on through the nether, positionless, still bodyless, but this time guided by some fleeting distant notion; the idea that something or someone (some Other) was calling out to her, perhaps searching for her even as she searched for it. She followed that notion through the everlasting night beyond nights, never stopping, turning neither to one side or the other, relentlessly in pursuit of her dream. In the wake of her passing the world which she had flown through shuddered, as though it had been grasped by the foundations and shook by some unimaginably large hand.

Far behind her in the cavern of flames the two priests dusted themselves off and shared a long, speculative glance. "That was most unusual," one said.

"Indeed," the other agreed. "Though I worry about what might happen now, I must admit that I am intrigued by the possibilities the future holds. Who knows what this world may look like in the coming years?"

His companion replied with a flippant shrug. "As you have said it, who knows?" He shot his partner a sly look. "Perhaps soon we will find ourselves serving different gods."

Both of them laughed at this, their beards shaking beneath their chins. Then they resumed their implacable demeanor and seated themselves once again on the floor, pondering and waiting, while all the while they could feel the progress of that nameless entity speeding through the darkest night in search of that which was calling her.

Calling.

Calling.

AN: My debut in fanfiction, and what better series than TTGL? Hope to see you all again soon.

P.S. formatting is the pits.


	2. Just Another Night in New Kamina City

Perchance to Dream

Chapter One

Just Another Night in New Kamina City

. . .

Evening had fallen on the city and the cavernous halls of the capitol building were dim and deserted, its daytime employees having scurried away to their modest government-worker homes in their modest government-maintained neighborhoods. The only people left in the quiet offices and corridors were the unlucky sods who were popular enough to be elected to a position of greater responsibility. The intern rushing down the hallway was not a person of great responsibility and therefore should have been home like all the other workers that night. He had the lucky misfortune of being in the service of someone who _was_ in a position of great responsibility however, so he was stuck working late. Spying the man he was looking for ahead of him in the twilight lit hallways he called out, his voice echoing loudly down the empty corridors, actually doubling back at some point and sounding like there was several of him.

"Mr. President!" the intern called.

(...President)

(President...)

(...ident)

"Mr. President" continued walking, trying to pretend he hadn't heard the young intern calling him.

"Mr. President! I have the update on the galactic dignitaries!"

The President placed one hand at his temple, roughly prodding the pressure point there. Just a few more steps and he would be at the VIP elevator. A few more steps to escape!

"Mr. President, Space Operations Commissioner Leeron said that if you don't review this report right away he would take you bar-hopping with him again!" the intern shouted, blissfully ignorant of the foul spell his words had just woven on the President of the Unified Great Earth System, Rossiu of Adai.

Rossiu froze in mid-step, unable to willingly move a muscle. His face became a grotesque mask of absolute horror. Slowly, mechanically, he tick-tock-turned to the intern, who took one look at his face and screamed, scattering official looking documents all over the hallway as he covered his eyes with his hands.

Rossiu zombie-walked to him and grabbed him by the shoulders with both hands. Bringing their faces so close together it would be difficult to slip a piece of paper between them Rossiu asked in a stuttering, terror-laden voice, "W-w-what did y-hou s-s-s-say to me? Did you ruh-really just thuh-threaten me with a f-fate worse than d-d-death? I could have you exe-exuh-exuh...shot!"

The poor intern squeaked and shook. Rossiu's too-wide eyes were staring deadly directly into his, and from this distance he could see the capilliaries bursting. "S-sir?" he asked.

Rossiu shook him violently. "He doesn't know!" he screamed to the heavens. "Oh, blissful ignorance! Oh, youthful innocence!"

He focused the intern with a wild-eyed glare. "BAR HOPPING WITH LEERON IS...!"

An image was forming in his mind, and he fought it valiantly.

**"BAR HOPPING WITH LEERON IS...!!"**

The image took shape but with Herculean effort Rossiu stamped it down. Stamped it, crammed it in a coffin and staked it with a wooden stake, then fired it into space on a rocket and had the whole thing pummeled out of the sky with a Giga Drill Breaker.

The intern eyed his President warily. The man wasn't much older than himself but now he was gasping for breath as if he had just won some titanic battle. "Are you...okay sir?"

Rossiu regarded him somewhat more calmly now, his emotions returning to their usual tight control. He couldn't blame the young man, either for his threat (which was Leeron's fault, really) or for his ignorance, and he certainly wasn't going to try and enlighten him. As it was he would never look at sequins the same way again. Or penguins for that matter. No reason to include the boy in his suffering.

Elsewhere, in the office of Space Operations Commissioner, Leeron sneezed cutely. "Oh dear," he purred. "Someone must be talking about me!"

He blew a kiss into the air and said a brief prayer that it would reach his distant unknown admirer safely.

In a hallway in the capitol building two and a half miles away, three floors down from the presidential office and six steps away from the VIP elevator, Rossiu experienced a violent shudder. He shook for a moment, but it passed and he straightened his coat and ordered the confused intern to give his damn report already.

"Well sir," the intern began. "The Aeon Territories send greetings and inform us that they will be reaching Space Sector Three and docking with Checkstation Simon II in twenty two hours. The Cybran Nation has also contacted us with assurances that they will be arriving at Checkstation Kamina I at precisely 11:52 AM New Kamina Earth Standard Time the day after tomorrow. Real sticklers for precision, those guys."

Rossiu nodded as he took in the remainder of the report, which listed seven more intergalactic delegations arriving within the next week. This would be the first physical contact between Earth and the many distant civilizations which had first hailed them mere moments after the defeat of the Anti-Spirals. It had been four years and restoration of Kamina City was finally complete, ending with the rededication of the city as New Kamina City. The city was ready for its distant guests and so plans were at last made for a conference among selected galactic nations, chosen for their physical location among their stellar peers. The selected representatives would meet here in New Kamina City then return to their star systems and hold their own conferences, drawing nearby civilizations who were not invited to Earth. This plan was made necessary by the staggering amount of separately inhabited star systems discovered in the chaotic aftermath of the Last Spiral War: over five thousand systems just like Earth! The sheer number of people this represented was mind-boggling, and obviously New Kamina City was currently unable to support numbers of this magnitude.

As the report wound to a close, Rossiu considered what he had heard. It was all starting now. Of course, ever since he had met Simon, Kamina, and Yoko his life had been one new beginning after another...so busy! It brought a smile to his face. "Everything seems to be in order and progressing as planned then," he stated. "Tell Space Operations Commissioner Leeron that I have no changes to offer at this time."

He turned and pressed his thumb against the fingerprint analyzer that would call the VIP elevator, then a thoughtful look passed over his features. "Oh yes, and give him this from me!" Here he made a savage face and flipped the kid his middle finger. The boy laughed until he was red in the face and Rossiu laughed with him.

Stepping off the elevator three floors up he made his way quickly to his office. Once inside he leaned heavily against the door for a few moments. Being president was more tiring than he could have possibly imagined. He made his way slowly to his desk, tossing aside his usual poise and relishing the way slouching a bit really relaxed his muscles. Sitting down and realizing that he might have a few rare private minutes, he considered how else he might pamper himself. He thought about calling his secretary and having her send him in some coffee. He didn't know what brand she brewed, but it was in his opinion the best cup of coffee he had ever tasted.

As he reached for his phone to press the call button his head slumped forward onto his desk. His arm leadenly followed suit. He lay there sprawled on his desktop for a few moments, staring at the little red button. It was close by. He could just reach up and press it and voila! his secretary would appear with a huge steaming mug of Whatevers-ville Coffee. Instead, his arm just lay there and he gazed lazily at the phone. Suddenly a very odd thing occurred. As he watched the red call button on the phone seemed to grow very large. The circular edges of the button began to sharpen until the round button became a strange looking pyramid. Yet, bafflingly, he could see that the button was still a circle; a circle-pyramid. The outlandishly warping illusion began to assume some definite and somehow loathsome geometry and his disconcerted mind struggled to keep up with the confounding movement of the not-angles. Finally unable to stand it any longer, Rossiu shut his eyes tightly and kept them shut for several long moments. When he at last opened them again, the strange illusion was gone. The circular call button was just a circular call button again. His head felt ridiculously heavy. He was obviously very tired if his mind was playing such weird tricks on him. He thought that instead of coffee he would have a nice catnap. Thirty minutes should do it, he thought. Any more would put a crimp in his already too busy schedule. Yes, a nap sounded really, really good. His eyes began to drift shut.

There was a knock at the door. His eyes snapped open. He shot the door an accusatory gaze, as though it had maligned him somehow by allowing someone to knock on it, and decided to try his luck a second time and pretend he wasn't in.

The knocking became more and more insistent and finally he sat up and rubbed at his temples irritably. Smoothing his features he called for the person at the door to enter.

His outlook on the day brightened considerably when he saw who it was. His wife, Kinon Bachika, strode smartly through the door, her heels click-clicking on the polished floor of his office. Rossiu took a moment to lament the fact that his former village was one of many where the tradition of surnames had long since vanished. Upon hearing about it, he had desperately wanted to give his wife that permanent piece of himself which would stay near her even when he could not. He could have easily given himself a name and made it legal, but how does one choose a surname? In the end he had remained just Rossiu, and she had remained Kinon Bachika, and as time went on he began to learn that between two people who shared a promise of "unto death" names were a trivial and ultimately transient matter. He gave her a fond look and Kinon's normally severe features melted into a beautiful smile as she drew near him, though a nearly unnoticable tightening around her eyes informed him that she had not missed the red marks on his face left from lying on his desk. He'd have to be careful or she would spike his drink with sleeping pills again. She was a real tyrant when it came to his personal wellbeing.

She placed a small cloth wrapped package on his desk. "I made you lunch, since I know you haven't eaten."

Rossiu gave her a grateful smile and picked up the food. Now that it was brought to his attention he really was hungry. As he unwrapped the package he was suddenly struck by a sense of deja vu. His eyes went of their own volition to a spot just a few feet to the right of where his wife was standing. He had been standing right there (was it really four years?) and had seen something similar to this take place. Nia Teppelin had been standing where his wife was, and instead of him in the presidential chair, Simon had been lounging in that uniquely sloppy-confident way that belonged only to him.

Their faces were so suddenly clear in his mind that when the grief welled up inside him it was too strong to hide it from his wife. He certainly tried, but Kinon knew him better than anyone; sometimes, he thought, better than he knew himself. His features barely twitched, but she was instantly by his side, placing her hands over his and leaning down to look him in the eye. "Are you thinking of him?"

He shook his head and corrected her. "Them. Not just him...them. It was the lunch you see...it, well it reminded me of...them."

Kinon said nothing, but she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close.

"I can't believe it," he murmured into her breast. "I really just can't believe it. I've always known life is unfair. Living in my village taught me that. But I thought that if anyone could beat the odds, if anyone _deserved_ to beat the odds and get a happy ending it was Simon. Simon, who sacrificed everything to give us this world we live in today."

He couldn't see her, his head buried as it was between her breasts, but he felt Kinon nod above him. Even without that confirmation he would have known she agreed. He hadn't realized the depth of pain he was capable of feeling for another person until he performed his best friend's wedding. In the hours, days, weeks after that tragic event he had hurt for both Simon and Nia with a pain that threatened to overwhelm his very will to function. When he married Kinon two years later she had burst into tears as he slipped the ring onto her finger. Gumdrop sized tears had fallen from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, smearing her mascara and splashing onto her quivering hands as he held them in his own. The event was televised worldwide, and in an effort to avoid joining his new wife in her tears he had bitten the inside of his cheek so viciously he drew blood.

Now in the privacy of his office with his wife beside him he felt those tears lurking threateningly, but they didn't fall. He remembered the last image he had of Simon effortlessly, the vision burned into his memory down to the last detail; the tall man walking away from them, scintillating sunlight burning around his head like a halo, his cloak billowing about his shoulders as he shed his pristine tuxedo jacket. The memory filled him with a fierce pride that never failed to lift his spirits. As he thought about it he felt his fatigue leaving him and smiled ruefully. Even though he had not seen or heard from Simon in the four years since, he could still feel that man's burning spirit lending him strength and determination as it always did. He thought, not for the first time, or for the last, that it really should be Simon sitting in this chair.

He ate his lunch leisurely, sharing a companionable silence with Kinon, and when he was done he stood to walk her to the door and immediately cursed his foolishness. Lost in nostalgia he had forgotten to surreptitiously test Kinon's offering with his drug detector. She really had slipped him sleeping drugs. He turned an accusing glare at her, intending to tell her just how much he had to do today and that he had no time to sleep the entire day away, but she just flashed him an evil smile. His knees gave out then and she caught him as he fell and twirled him over her shoulder in a judo throw that he had secretly dubbed the "Rossiu goes directly to effing bed" throw. She had used that throw to great effect during the two years of their marriage, sometimes when she wanted him to just get some blasted sleep already, and other times when she was feeling...feisty. As he landed heavily on one of the couches in his office he realized sadly that there would be no naughtiness today. The drug was already doing its work and his traitorous eyelids were steadily blocking out the outside world. The last thing he saw was his wife pulling a thin blanket over him. Her lips were moving but he couldn't make out what she was saying; that was fine though, since the smug look on her face told him everything he really needed to know.

--

Viral stomped down the hallway of the military dormitories, caring little that conversations came to a screeching halt anytime he passed an open door. He blew his breath out in angry puffs. He couldn't believe the stupidity of R&D. Twenty hours until the first dignitaries arrived from deep space and those four-eyed, thin boned, coffee guzzling, no muscle wimps still had Gurren Lagann in the research lab instead of in its hangar being prepped for launch like it was supposed to. He had burst into the lab screaming at the top of his lungs and kicking at any lab tech that got too close. The head technician had tried to calm him but Viral just took the man's coffee and poured it on his crotch, then broke the mug. After that the technician decided to "take the rest of the day off" and called for Gurren Lagann to be returned to its hangar. Now, to make his day even better, the only two pilots in the world allowed inside the machine were nowhere to be found. He was fairly certain that Darry would be in her dorm room, but Gimmy could be anywhere. Which was why he was going to make it Darry's problem and leave it at that.

When he reached her door he immediately began pounding on it and shouting. "Darry! Open the door! Darry!"

The door cracked open a bit and Viral tried to lean in, but Darry jammed her foot against the bottom and held it where it was. She peered through the crack somewhat bleary eyed and it was obvious she had been asleep. "Commander Viral?" she asked groggily. "What's the matter? We're not due in for another five hours."

"Change of plans girl. Those nutjobs in R&D didn't return Gurren Lagann on time and now we're behind schedule. I need you and Gimmy to help run the launch diagnostics."

Darry got an aggrieved look on her face. "Well, okay. I'll be at the hangar in forty minutes," she said, turning back into her room.

"Wait!" Viral shouted. Darry looked at him tiredly. "I uh, I need you to find Gimmy."

Darry sighed in exasperation. "Yeah, yeah, fine."

She attempted to close the door, but this time Viral manage to kick it open before the latch clicked. He bounded into her room, pushing her towards the bathroom.

"You go wash your face, put on your makeup, do your hair, whatever it is girls do! I'll get your uniform. We're late!"

He herded her in the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her. A second later she heard her drawers open and she shrieked and hurled the door back open.

"Don't you go digging through my drawers you animal, I can dress myself!"

Too late. Even as she spoke a pair of panties floated down to rest on her head. Viral had her drawers open and was throwing articles of clothing out left and right. A bra and a pair of panties were already slung over his shoulder.

"Dammit girl, where's your uniform? All these drawers have in them is underwear!" He ripped open yet another drawer and gave the contents a speculative look. He reached in and lifted out a pair of panties that was nothing but pink lace. He crinkled his nose at them, as if confused by something. "This underwear wouldn't cover anything! What's the point of it?"

Darry screamed in fury and threw a curling iron at his head which he barely dodged.

"Hey, hey! That's assaulting an officer!"

"Idiot! Pig! Only stupid men stuff everything in drawers! My uniform is in the closet! The closet!"

He gave her a wide eyed look. "The closet? You put clothes in the closet?"

"Yes you Neanderthal! What do you think a closet's for?"

He thought for a second. "Gee, mine is full of empty boxes."

"AUUUGH!" she screeched, and slammed the bathroom door.

Fifteen minutes later Viral watched Darry depart down the hall in search of Gimmy. He had tried to leave ten minutes ago, but Darry had poked her head out of the bathroom and given him The Eye, the one that all women seemed to be born with, and told him he was "going nowhere until you've cleaned my room mister." His body had frozen under her gaze and when she disappeared back into the bathroom he had reluctantly began picking up her scattered undergarments. Not knowing how to fold them, he had simply gathered it all into one huge armload and stuffed it into a single drawer. Luckily Darry had not checked his work, though he was quite sure that there would be hell to pay once she did.

He was suddenly aware, as she walked away from him, of the curve of her hips and her long legs, not at all hidden by the close fitted jumpsuit she wore. His hands which had held her bra and panties seemed to burn. In the back of his mind he heard

(Papa! Papa!)

a dream voice and he shook his head to clear it. Let the Spirals dream their dreams. For a beastman like him there was only the fight. He rather hoped that some of the galaxies even now on their way to Earth proved hostile to the idea of a universe-wide council. He would relish the opportunity to beat them into submission. That was the only dream he could dream that might actually come true.

He turned his back on Darry's retreating derriere and made for the back exit of the dormitories. A glance at a clock at the end of the hall told him it was three minutes before midnight, which meant that he had just enough time to reach the student station before the tram arrived. From there it would be a short trip to the officer's station, which could in turn bring him to the hangars. Behind him he heard doors closing as the students prepared for curfew. It was a Friday night and most academy students were off tomorrow. Gimmy and Darry were technically academy students as well, but their unique position as the pilots of Gurren Lagann often drew them away from the classroom and dictated a very different schedule than the other students followed. The whole affair was in fact a formality. The moment those two graduated they would be promoted to officer, probably skipping sergeant altogether and jumping straight to lieutenant or even higher. They had far too much combat experience to allow them to languish in the ranks of the grunts.

He had no more than raised his foot to take a step when his inner ear told him something exceedingly strange. He was upside down. Still not quite fully aware of what he was experiencing he automatically glanced downward to verify the sensation even as he began to roll forward into a crouch that would put him back on the floor and right side up. The problem was, he _was_ on the floor, and if his eyes were to be believed, he was also right side up. His roll, instead of placing him on his feet, placed him on his butt for the first time he could ever remember. He tried to regain his footing, but the sensation was far too disorienting. His eyes showed him a normal hallway and a normal floor (to which his butt was firmly attached, just as gravity intended); the cat in him told him that he was sitting on the ceiling, and the cat was never wrong about things like that.

After several tries he finally managed to stand and he peered down the hallway. At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then, soundlessly and without preamble, the hall began to twist. The four receding lines where the floor met the wall were curving in a clockwise direction. The clock at the end of the hall had not moved at all, yet the twelve o'clock position was now at the three o'clock position. Glancing down at his feet Viral could see that the floor beneath him was curving in a similar fashion, but his equilibrium still told him that he was perfectly vertical and upside down. Dizziness washed over him in waves and he tried to look behind him, hoping to see something there that made sense, but he only managed to turn his head a little before the vertigo became so severe that his already shaky legs collapsed beneath him. This time he was completely unprepared and he banged his tailbone against the thinly carpeted floor painfully. He squinted his eyes shut for a moment in discomfort and when he opened them the hall was normal and the vertigo gone.

Leaping to his feet, Viral spun in a complete circle, and then another. The feeling of being upside down was completely gone, as if it had never been there at all, and the hall showed no sign whatsoever of having undergone any twisting or turning of any sort. He stood in silence for a few moments, the hair standing up on the back of his neck as he stretched his animal-sharp senses for some clue that would help him understand what had just occurred. Down the hall a television was playing quietly in one the dorm rooms; he had hardly heard it before it was turned off and only silence remained. Suddenly needing to be outside very badly, Viral dashed to the back entrance of the dorms and out into the night. He did not examine the hallway any further as his feet pounded on the thin carpet; he didn't want to think anymore about it. He paid no attention at all to the clock at the end of the hall, lest he look and see that the twelve still rested at the three position.

The clock ticked loudly in the silent hallway. The time read 12:10.

--

She found him exactly where she thought he would be. After all, if Gimmy was not with her, and he was not in his dorm room, there were only two places he could be. Given that the cafeteria was a highly unlikely possibility at this time of night, Darry had exited the dormitories and hopped on her hover scooter and flew directly to the hangars. She flashed her badge at the guard on duty, sitting in his little glass cubicle, and he pressed the button which opened the gates. Once inside the hangar field she flew her scooter to a building on the far end. She parked her scooter outside and entered her key code on the tiny number pad beside the building's only door. Inside this building was one thing only: a set of steel double doors. To the left of the doors was another number pad with a small dark pane of glass beside it. From behind the piece of glass a red glow shined faintly. Darry entered a different key code on this pad than the first one and then pressed her thumb against the glass pane, leaving a faint fingerprint on its surface. A green light above the steel doors flashed brightly and the doors opened to reveal a rather large elevator. Darry stepped in and pressed the number 51.

The elevator traveled for several minutes, sometimes going down, as one might expect an elevator to, and other times seeming to move either to the left or to the right. The hangars above ground were the lowest security hangars. Most of the vehicles and aircraft housed there were the non-combative type. The rest of the hangars were buried underground. There were six levels stretching down into the earth, the first five of which contained ten hangars each. Each of those hangars was a massive structure, capable of holding hundreds of combat machines. Many of the hangars had nothing at all in them. The military did not have enough vehicles to fill all the spaces, and even if they did, there were not half as many people as necessary to man them. That was the purpose of the military academy that she and Gimmy were (rather unnecessarily) attending; to train more combat-worthy recruits. The war with the Anti-Spirals had robbed them of most of their most experienced warriors and with every known race in the universe about to engage in the biggest case of voluntary culture shock ever, a strong military might become imperative.

Far below the other levels, buried in a granite formation whose size was measured in cubic kilometers, Level 6 was unlike the other levels in that it had only one hangar, Hangar 51. Though just as massive as any of the hangars above it, Hangar 51 had only one dock, built specifically for one war machine: Gurren Lagann.

The elevator doors opened and Darry strode out into the dimly lit expanse. From the far end Gurren Lagann rose out of the shadows like some dark sentinel. She had to squint her eyes and study the distant catwalks for a few moments before she picked out Gimmy's outline amid the gloom. She smiled slightly at the image he cut, standing at about waist level to Gurren Lagann and staring up at its massive face. This was Gimmy's sanctuary, his tabernacle, where he all but worshipped the memory of his God-Hero. That thought dampened the smile on Darry's face and slowed her step. She was proud to be the pilot of Gurren, just as proud as Gimmy was to be the pilot of Lagann, but both of them would hand over the Core-Drill in a heartbeat to see Simon return.

As she hurried across the catwalks the lights above began to hum and slowly warm up. Figures began emerging from other elevator doors which came from other hangar levels. She gave a quiet exclamation of surprise as she realized just how behind they really were if the maintenance crews were not even here yet. As she drew near him Gimmy turned to her with a surprised look. "Darry, I thought you were asleep."

"I was asleep until our idiot commander came pounding on my door."

Gimmy hid a little grin at Darry's tone. Rude, manic, and about as subtle as a chainsaw but lacking all the social graces, Wing Commander Viral had a way of getting under _anybody's_ skin.

Darry decided to pretend she didn't see him smiling and went on, but noted his indiscretion. He would learn not to smirk at the woman who did his laundry. "Since you're already here and in uniform, I'll assume you know that Gurren Lagann just arrived from R&D."

Gimmy would not meet her eyes. "Uh, yeah, I saw them bring it in."

Darry rubbed at her forehead. "You were there weren't you?"

"Ah haha...yeah."

"And you hid from Viral."

"Well of course! Geez, he was really on a tear! The head tech had first degree burns all over his-" Gimmy suddenly gave her a wide eyed glance and snapped his mouth shut.

Darry raised an eyebrow at his sudden reluctance. "Burns all over his what?"

"Never mind that! Anyway, I guess we're running a little late and they need us to help out right? We should get started."

Darry nodded her agreement and made to go down a nearby staircase, but stopped when she realized Gimmy wasn't following. He had turned his gaze back to Gurren Lagann and was standing motionless. In his hand he clutched the Core-Drill, given to him by Simon on the last day they had seen him. The familiar sadness settled on her heart and she too gazed up at Gurren Lagann and allowed memory to sweep her away for a moment. She was startled by a yell an indeterminate amount of time later and realized that she had no idea how long she had been lost in thought. Looking through the metal grating of the catwalk to the floor below her she saw a technician waving at her. From the far end of the hangar in the direction of the elevator she had emerged from she heard a familiar screeching. Between the cat in him and his natural excitability anytime Viral raised his voice it took on a distinctive yowling pitch. _'Time for the mice to get back to work_,_'_ she thought.

Gimmy was still staring unseeingly at Gurren Lagann's head and the knuckles of the hand which clenched the Core-Drill were bright white at the joints. Darry sighed; they had all loved Simon, and by the end of the battles with the Anti-Spirals Darry couldn't have said for certain that she would not have followed him anywhere; into water, into fire, into the very jaws of Death. She knew in her heart that Gimmy felt the same, but also that it was different for him. She would never be expected to be the next Simon; Gimmy on the other hand, would. She touched him gently on the shoulder and he looked at her slowly, blinking, as though coming out of a trance. Together they descended the catwalk and began the familiar pre-launch ritual. Above them, crowned in flickering shadow that the hot halogen lights seemed unable to dispel, Gurren Lagann loomed stoically like a veteran soldier, never sleeping, waiting.

Waiting.


	3. Alone You Breathe

Perchance to Dream

Chapter Two

Alone You Breathe

**. . . . . . . . . . . . .**

_Which of us is now in exile_

_Which in need of amnesty_

_Are you now but an illusion_

_In my mind alone you breathe_

_Savatage_

_Alone You Breathe_

**. . . . . . . . . . . . .**

The bar door opened and spilled a column of warm yellow light into the pre-dawn darkness of the street outside. From within came a pair of voices. One was slurred to the point of incomprehensibility. The other was a slow, rumbling drawl that sounded like the ponderous roll of distant thunder. Though the voice itself was frightening to listen to, it held a tone of deep concern that seemed almost comically out of place.

"Come on now, Lenz," the placatory voice growled. "Look, it's morning. Go on home and get some sleep, humm."

The man called Lenz made an answer but it was completely unintelligible. His sentence was punctuated with an ominous sounding moan and the light from the doorway was suddenly extinguished as a monstrous silhouette emerged holding a man by his shoulders. The enormous figure bent the man at the waist and pointed him away from the threshold just in time to save his doormat. The man puked wretchedly onto the sidewalk for a minute, then hung limply in the larger form's grasp.

The big one heaved a deep sigh and patted the smaller man on the back. "Can you make it home, Lenz?" he asked. The drunken man, still hanging limply, nodded weakly and struggled to his feet. "Uhm, alright then, be careful now."

The hulking bartender stood in the road and watched Lenz with an air of sadness until he disappeared around a corner. He wished that Lenz would just hate him. Perhaps if he did he would take out his frustration on him instead of killing himself slowly with the drink.

With another sigh he turned and re-entered the bar. The light inside revealed a literal bear of a man. Standing two and a half meters tall with arms that made most men's legs look puny, Bernhardt was a beastman with as much bear in him as human, and maybe a little more. Moving around the bar Bernhardt performed his nightly cleaning rituals with mechanical precision and attention to detail. Like his wild cousins, his massive bulk belied the swiftness of his stride and he moved with a strange rolling grace that seemed simultaneously comical and beautiful.

Around forty five minutes later, with the floor swept, the glasses carefully cleaned, and the bar polished to a high shine, Bernhardt exited the bar through the back entrance and locked the door behind him. He strolled to his small home a mile away on a path that led him on a circuitous route around the town, avoiding most of the buildings. He liked to walk near the edge of the village where the trees grew close. He felt comfortable and peaceful in their presence. Had he followed a more direct route he would have very nearly copied the course Lenz had traveled earlier and it is entirely possible that the events that swept the world in the next few weeks would not have come as such a horrifying surprise. At the very least Lenz would have been grateful to him.

**. . . . . . . . . . . . .**

Lenz Erhlichmann had fairly good reason to hate Bernhardt. It had been twenty years since the people of his village had been forced to the surface when their diggers had broken into a large pocket of poisonous gas, and nineteen since his young wife of only two years and their ten month old son had been killed during a beastman attack. For eight years he fought viciously against the beastmen, joining every raid, volunteering for every post in an endless pursuit of vengeance that left him empty and spiteful. Then, in a whirlwind of chaos and heroes, it was over. Kamina and Simon blazed to the surface with their seemingly invincible Gunman Gurren Lagann and toppled the beastman empire like a house made of cards. Lenz had tried to join the fighting, but it had been over so suddenly. Without warning he found himself in a world where beastmen and humans walked the same streets. There was tension, to be sure, but it was mostly tempered by Supreme Commander Simon's never ending crusade to see peace between the races. That Viral, a beastman warrior from the defeated empire, was instrumental in the stunning victory over the Anti-Spirals was a point that Simon's former administration never failed to emphasize. Within a relatively short amount of time beastmen and humans were, if not coexisting completely peacefully, at least making a decent show of it, and Lenz found that he was more and more alone in his hatred. There were others like him, people from villages that had for some reason or another been forced topside where the beastmen waited with their superior weaponry, but even among those survivors the anger and resentment were growing dim in the shining light of the new age being fostered by the very technology that had previously bound them beneath the earth.

With nowhere to direct his anger Lenz had been lost, desolate, and drifting in a world he could no longer understand. He wandered from place to place, throwing himself into whatever work he could find, but it was never enough to fill the hollowness that his life had become. He at last turned to alcohol to drown out his clamoring thoughts and bring a swift end to every formidable night. It was when the alcohol had replaced work, replaced joy, replaced everything he ever had that he met Bernhardt. The bear-like beastman was a bartender in a medium sized village called Herzburg. In Bernhardt he found, to his horror, someone who truly understood his pain, who struggled with the same questions he did. Being a beastman, Bernhardt had no true family. Beastmen arranged themselves by clans, each clan made up of beastmen created with similar genetic material. When two beastmen of a clan became very close, they could choose to adopt the moniker of Clan Brother or Clan Sister. Beastmen associated by these bonds viewed each other as human siblings often do. Bernhardt had lost his entire clan to Simon's assault on the capital, including his two favorite Clan Brothers. Lenz found that he could not hate Bernhardt; in fact, he could not help but like the gentle giant. With their shared history the two became as close to friends as Lenz's broken heart would allow. With no more hatred and no more anger, Lenz was well and truly lost. Even his newfound friendship with Bernhardt could not pull him out of the dreary pall that had fallen over his life and drunkenness had become familiar and comfortable. Most nights he staggered home from Bernhardt's bar, The Average Bear, just as ridiculously hammered as he was on this particular night.

He paused several times as he made his way to the inn where he rented a room, forced to rest as his spinning senses threatened to shut down altogether. At one point he sat down next to a street lamp, passed out, woke up without ever realizing he had slept, and continued on his way. A little over halfway to the inn, Lenz foggily realized that he was not going to make it unless he shortened his journey. Following the roads made him wind his way around buildings in a path that was easily twice as far as a more direct route would be, but if he took to the alleyways he could shave off quite a bit of distance and maybe manage to make it to his bed before the liquor overcame him completely. He turned right down the next alley he found.

The alley was long and dark, bounded on one side by a high wooden fence and on the other the backside of a small marketplace. There were several long metal boxes crammed along the back wall of the market where merchants could throw away garbage. There was no real pavement in the alley, though the grime had grown thick enough to mostly obscure the ground. The air was heavy with the smell of rotten food.

Lenz hurried down the garbage strewn path, eager to pass through quickly and get away from the smell, which was causing his alcohol-abused stomach to flip-flop sickeningly. Halfway down the alley was a low fence about waist high and he climbed over it shakily. As he was steadying himself on the other side he smelled something other than the garbage; some low, unnamable scent that filled him with spasms of horror. Once, when he was young, an entire herd of pigmoles had fallen deathly ill. They lingered for weeks, vomiting and defecating in their stalls before finally dying almost all at the same time. It had taken days to bury them all and by the time the villagers neared the end the last corpses were bloated and reeking in the mess. The smell in the alley reminded him somewhat of that; that defiled dead animal smell.

Something shuffled in the darkness ahead of him and Lenz bit back a gasp and edged back toward the low fence. Peering into the gloom he saw something large and white rummaging in one of the garbage bins. At first he thought it was a dog, but he had no sooner breathed a sigh of relief than the thing seemed to become aware of his presence. It moved away from the bin into the middle of the alley with a disgustingly bizarre _whisk-plop _sound.

_Whisk-plop. Whisk-plop. Whisk-plop._

As it drew near Lenz saw that it was definitely not a dog. He thought that he should have run the moment he first became aware of it, should have not even entered the alley at all. It was a large, amorphous white mass that stood about chest high to him. As he watched, terror-stricken, long, white appendages rose into the air from the front of the beast and waved sinuously. Lenz uttered a gibbering shriek and dove backwards over the fence, but the tentacle-like arms darted forward and wrapped around him. He tried to scream for help but one of the appendages forced its way into his mouth. He bit down on it viciously. It was like chewing a mouthful of gristle. Some odious liquid that tasted like spoiled milk discharged into his throat. It was more than his churning stomach could bear. He heaved spastically but the tentacle was groping down his throat and he began to choke. It turned out to be a small mercy. As the thing pulled him toward it lack of oxygen stole his consciousness before he could see the beast split from bottom to top to reveal an enormous maw lined with needle shaped teeth.

The shadowy corridor was filled with crunching and slurping sounds for a few terrible moments. Something shuffled around in the darkness, and then a repulsive lump emerged from the alley and scuttled from shadow to shadow down the murky street. At some point it entered deep shadow and disappeared altogether.

**. . . . . . . . . . . . .**

Ian awoke with his heart pounding in his chest and the Voice ringing in his ears. Pale rays of sunlight streamed in through the window, setting dust motes alight in the air and flickering cheerily on the floor. He glanced around the room he was in and saw that he was alone, as he had expected. He spent several minutes breathing deeply to calm his racing heart and unwinding the sheets from around his fists. There were white lines across his knuckles where he had gripped the cloth so hard that it left impressions upon his hands. His movements stirred his bedmate, a pigmole roughly the size of a large can of soup.

"Mornin' Teppy," Ian said. "Time to get up."

The pigmole simply glared at him and snuggled further back into the pillow he lay on. Ian shrugged and rolled out of bed. He performed his morning ablutions mechanically, thinking about what he was going to do as he did so.

It was a shame that he would have to leave this town, but he had grown too comfortable with it. The return of the Voice left him with no choice. Wandering had become his life. He traveled from place to place, meeting new people, working new jobs, and seeing new places. The novelty of new experiences seemed to drown the Voice for a while, at least until the freshness of the area wore off. His eleven month stay in this village marked his longest sojourn yet, but he was obviously growing accustomed to the bump and bustle of the town called Herzburg. He knew from experience that he would soon be unable to sleep. The Voice would call too loudly, too insistently. Shortly after that it would become difficult to hold conversations. He had tried once to ride it out about two years before, hoping that, like a sickness, the Voice would fade with time and leave him in peace. Instead he had nearly died when he became too addled to remember to eat or drink properly. Now when the Voice came Ian made plans to move immediately. He did not like the idea of running away, but neither was he terribly enthusiastic about dying a pointless death. He was fairly certain he was mad, but asking for help was not a luxury available to him.

Ian dressed quickly in the loose fitting clothing characteristic of the area of the world he was currently in and pulled on his boots. Picking up Teppy, who was still sleeping, he placed the small creature on his shoulder. Though Teppy did not wake, the little pigmole snugged himself against Ian's collarbone in a familiar way that suggested he spent a fair amount of time riding there. Ian descended the staircase to the first floor of the inn and walked out the door. There were goodbyes to be said today.

Outside the inn's door the morning light revealed a medium sized town nestled snugly among the trees at the base of a mountain range. Just a few hundred meters north and west of the town the heavily forested terrain curved sharply upwards to high cliffs and tall peaks. To the south the land became plains and then marshes as it drew close to the ocean. Just a few kilometers east a river ran down from the northeastern slopes and flowed to the sea. Trading vessels sailed it constantly, to Herzburg and other villages like it scattered on the steps of the Verdant Rise Mountains, which were named for their tallest peak, Verdant Rise, which was capped year-round with shimmering green ice. Scientists said that it was caused by a peculiar form of lichen which grew there.

The streets of Herzburg were laid out in neat, uniform squares, a sure sign that its architects were originally from one of the underground villages that preferred to carve their domains from monumental formations of solid rock rather than transform a natural cavern into living space. Ian's home village had been one of the latter, and he found the grid-like structure of the town boring but convenient for getting from one place to another quickly. As he walked down the cobblestone roads, still slightly damp beneath his boots from the night time dew, windows were flung wide as people opened their houses to take advantage of the cool morning air. Shopkeepers put up their banners and small-time merchants pulled their carts onto the streets, setting them up with practiced efficiency.

Three blocks down from the inn Ian came across a merchant who, instead of unpacking, was rapidly closing up her shop. It was Old Emma (everyone left out the "Old" part when speaking to her), a women who, if she was to be believed, was the first inhabitant at the foot of the Verdant Rise Mountains, settling in a small natural orchard of apple trees that grew a few hundred yards outside of town. Her claim was disputed by several other old-timers however, each swearing they had been here earlier than the others. When the liquor began flowing some of them became increasingly more extravagant in their tales, Freddie Gaul once claiming to have lived on this land for "nigh on a hunnert years ya know!" Ridiculous of course, given that humanity had emerged from their underground shelters only a mere eleven years ago.

"Hullo Emma!" he called as he approached her. "The miners must have been extra hungry this morning if you're already packing up!"

Old Emma turned and squinted at him and let out a crackling laugh that spoke of many years of tobacco smoking. She was puffing on a pipe at that very moment in fact. "Gya ha, gya ha," she cackled. "Would that I were so lucky, aye! No, I be moving shop. This here alleyway smells like a midden heap."

She gestured at a narrow alley behind her stand. Ian peered down it and saw that the ground was thick and dark with grime. An errant breath of wind brought the smell to him unexpectedly and he nearly gagged. Something had surely crawled under one of the bins and died. Waving his hand in front of his face Ian hurried over to Emma's cart and helped her take down the awning and load the boxes of fruit and pies. She gave him a grateful slap on the back as he pulled it down to the next street corner. It was surprisingly heavy and Ian wondered how she pulled it up the sloping roads from her home and into the middle of town every day at her age.

"Thankee my boy, thankee," she rasped as he finished securing the cart at its new location. She snatched an apple off the top of the pile, examined it critically, then put it back and grabbed another which, upon passing inspection, she tossed to him. He caught it and immediately tried to hand it back. "I couldn't..." he began.

"Payment for labor," Emma said dismissively. "Besides, these here be the apples you helped me harvest last week. You ran away then 'afore I could pay you, so I'm not gonna miss me chance now!"

Ian had nothing to say to that, so he just smiled and took a bite of his apple. After bidding farewell to Emma he continued down the street, munching contentedly on the snack and calling out greetings to people as he passed. Ian was a notoriously hard worker and when he arrived in Herzberg he worked countless odd-jobs, becoming well known and well respected very quickly. Around four months after his arrival he secured a position as an apprentice to the village's blacksmith and had worked there ever since. The blacksmith shop was the first place he wanted to visit today.

The shop was just outside the edge of town where the near constant smoke produced by the forge could be swept away by the highland air currents instead of becoming trapped in the streets. That forge was hard at work streaking the air with thick black columns as Ian approached, the blacksmith Ezekiel obviously prepping it for work. He paused at the door.

A voice called his name, as high and clear as the most finely tuned handbell; a ringing, plaintive note. He looked down the road where the cobblestones ended and the road turned to dirt before curving away into the forest. The trees murmured slowly in the wind. No one was there.

"Please stop," he whispered.

And pushed open the door and walked inside.

The inside of the shop was dim despite the windows, they being dusted with a thin layer of soot that no amount of cleaning ever seemed to fully remove, and the air held a faint tang of iron both to the nose and mouth. Ian inhaled the scent deeply; he was surprised at how comfortable it smelled. Ezekiel was not inside the shop. Judging from the banging sounds coming from the smithy he was still outside preparing the workshop. Ian took a moment to look around and memorize the layout of the place. He had learned much here; was already a skilled enough metalworker to earn journeyman status, according to Ezekiel. He wanted to remember this place.

The walls were hung with various tools; everything from shovels and posthole diggers to miter saw blades and power drill bits. Behind the counter was an enormous assortment of automobile parts. Few people in Herzberg owned an automobile but the mines employed a fleet of trucks for hauling ore and debris. Ezekiel turned a pretty profit as an off and on mechanic based on those lumbering vehicles alone. Ian walked the length of the counter and spun the bucket-rack at the end that held an assortment of fasteners. He had knocked the rack over last week while carrying a bag of cement for Old Emma and it had taken him nearly five hours to pick up and sort the mess of nails and screws into their proper buckets.

The sound of the smithy door opening turned Ian around to see Ezekiel limping into the shop. According to the old blacksmith, the limp was from spilling molten iron on his foot over twenty years ago. The primitive underground medicine of that time could do nothing for the extensive damage, but aside from the slight catch in his walk, Ian could see no other effects of missing two of his five toes on his left foot. Indeed, Ezekiel was the most powerful human Ian had ever met, and even among beastmen only Bernhardt, the bear-man bartender, had ever been known to beat Ezekiel in an arm wrestling contest.

The old man's dark face split into a wide grin when he saw Ian standing there. He strode forward and grabbed Ian's hand in a grip that felt like a hydraulic press and pumped it up and down twice.

"What're ye doing here boy? It's yer day off."

Ian opened his mouth to respond and suddenly found no words. He realized that he had come here with a purpose but had spent the entire trip avoiding any thought of it. He stood there with his hand in Ezekiel's, staring into the other man's face with his mouth halfway open wondering what exactly he intended to say. Ian knew his cover was blown completely when Ezekiel's eyes narrowed slightly and took on a knowing look.

"Well, if ye got enough time to stand 'round catchin' flies then ye got enough time to make yerself useful," he drawled.

Ian blinked uncomprehendingly. "Huh?"

"I mean I got work for ye. Get yerself in the smithy and work the bellows."

Without another word Ezekiel brushed past him and went to fiddling with something in the cabinet beneath the register. With an internal shrug Ian walked into the smithy and strapped on a pair of leather chaps over his pants. He roused Teppy, who was amazingly still sleeping, and the little pigmole leaped onto a nearby shelf and hunkered down to watch Ian patiently. Ian hung his poncho in the corner and stripped off his shirt and hung it too. The shirt could protect him from flying sparks from the forge or anvil, but he had ruined far too many shirts in the early days of his apprenticeship. When he realized that he was spending a fair portion of his pay on replacement garments Ian decided to suck it up and deal with the minor burns on his torso. Now, after working metal for more than six months, he barely noticed when the hot debris raining from his hammer or flying from the open furnace alighted on his chest to sizzle there for a moment before growing  
dim.

Walking over to the forge Ian grabbed the handles of the bellows and pumped. When he began this job ten minutes at the bellows made his arms feel like gelatin and the heat of the fire made him nauseous. Now he could pump the bellows all day without a break and the heat, rather than making him sick, only helped to make his muscles limber. He was much larger than he had ever been. He had always kept in shape, exercising and doing a small amount of structured fighting that some had taken to calling "martial arts," but he had still remained slim. His older shirts no longer fit him. They were two sizes too small across the shoulders and chest and his biceps stretched the sleeves to the point of bursting.

Ezekiel soon joined him in the forge and Ian spent the remainder of the day lost in the haze of hard work. The smoke, the fire, the smell of burnt iron swirled around him and stole his identity. The sweat that rolled down his chest carried with it all his worry and fear; the red eyed bloom of blazing metal guilelessly met his gaze as Ezekiel held it with tongs and pointed out where to swing his hammer.

When Ezekiel at last clapped his hands and declared the day to be over Ian jumped as though he had been goosed with a hot poker. He peered out the smithy door and saw that the sunlight was giving way to evening. He and the old blacksmith had worked the entire day without even breaking for lunch and Ian had not realized it. As though the thought of lunch had flipped a switch inside him Ian's stomach growled loudly. He turned to suggest that he walk to town and buy them both a large meal from The Average Bear but instead found a stack of sandwiches thrust into his hands.

"I made those before I joined ye this morning," Ezekiel explained. "Though I had intended to et 'em 'round midday."

He walked outside and sat on a bench outside the smithy and began unwrapping his own stack of sandwiches. Ian joined him and they ate silently for a while as the sun grew dimmer behind the mountains and night approached.

"When ye leavin'?" Ezekiel asked him.

"I intended to say my goodbyes today," Ian answered with a sigh. "But I ended up working all day."

"Looked to me like ye needed it."

Ian took a bite of his last sandwich and looked at his hands. They were jet black and left streaks on the bread. He could wash them, but what was the point? He had been breathing the stuff all day. He took another bite and looked inward, allowing the mundane act of eating to serve as a gauge for his mood. Broke off a juicy bit of the sandwich and tossed it at Teppy, who caught it before it hit the ground and gulped it down. The nervous, defeated feeling that had plagued him that morning was gone, mostly. He felt surer, more focused.

"Yeah, I did need it," Ian replied. "I'll leave tomorrow."

Ezekiel scowled lightly. It had an impressive effect on his already leather-tough features. If a mountain could frown it would look like Ezekiel. He seemed to be hesitating. Ian watched him from the corner of his eye and for the first time he could remember he clearly saw Ezekiel struggling with some internal question.

The frown smoothed out. "Three days."

"What?"

"I need ye for three more days. Can ye spare it?"

Ian met the old man's gaze steadily. He could see no reason for the request. The blacksmith had gotten along perfectly before he arrived and would, he was sure, get along perfectly when he was gone. On the other hand, he could see no reason to deny it. He wanted to ask why, but something in Ezekiel's eyes, an intensity that he did not quite understand and made him a little self conscious, convinced him that in three days he would know everything.

"Sure."

Ezekiel grunted a noncommittal acknowledgment but Ian could tell he was pleased. The old man reached into his vest pocket and withdrew a handful of coins which he slapped into Ian's hand.

"What's this?"

"Payment for today."

Ian counted the coins with a confused expression. "This is half again, no, two full days' wages..."

"Overtime pay. Go get a drink at Bernhardt's. I'll clean the shop and join ye in a bit."

Not waiting for a reply, Ezekiel turned and limped into the workshop. Ian and Teppy stared after him.

"Bu." Teppy grunted.

"Yeah," Ian agreed quietly. "Very suspicious."

He held out his hand and Teppy ran up his arm to his customary spot on Ian's shoulder and together they walked into town. They stopped at the public bath so Ian could scrub away the grime and sweat of a day spent in the blasting heat of the smithy. Teppy paddled around the large tubs on top of a bar of soap. When Ian was decently clean (there was black soot ground into the lines of his hands and beneath his fingernails that never came out) they made their way to the most popular bar in town, The Average Bear.

Ian could hear the noise from inside before he even opened the door. It was early evening and the shops had closed for the night, the miners had returned from the mines and it seemed everyone was looking for a chance to drink and shoot the bull with buddies. Ian stepped into the warm, hazy atmosphere and was swallowed by the crowd, hailed and hustled up to the bar.

The night wrapped itself in a golden glow and passed like a slow moving dream. Ian drank until a very light and pleasant mist settled over his vision and then drank no more. He liked the roaring burn of the liquor but was terrified of becoming drunk. Teppy had no such qualms. The little pigmole drained two pints in a matter of minutes (how that was possible, given Teppy was smaller than the mugs he drank from, Ian did not bother to ponder) and got so hammered he started walking backwards. Samantha Brown picked him up just before he backed off the edge of the bar and he rode around in her cleavage while she waited tables, jumped out of his comfy perch to perform tricks in the middle of the old-timer's poker game, ruining the pot, and peed in Marv Nielson's beer while he was not looking. Marv was the local tax collector, and he was very loose with numbers. Everyone in the bar roared with laughter as he looked around frantically shouting "Wut!? Wut!?" with beer foam on his lips. Plonker got what he deserved.

At some point Ian revealed his plans to leave town and after that people kept taking turns buying rounds for everyone present and proclaiming toasts. He pretended to be charmingly dense as Amy, one of the waitresses, attempted to flirt with him (she was shy to the point of incoherence) and outright ran from Samantha (who was, well, not so shy, and his butt had the pinch-shaped bruises to prove it). He played poker with the old-timers and lost every hand, arm wrestled Bernhardt and lost some more, and hit fifteen bullseyes in row at darts. With all the attention on him while he showed off at the dart board no one noticed Bernhardt surreptitiously massaging and flexing his elbow behind the bar.

Eventually the hour grew late and people were forced to submit to the reality of jobs and early mornings and general adult responsibility. They filed out alone or in groups with parting shots at Ian as they left.

"Hey, I'll see you tomorrow night Ian!"

"Yeah, tomorrow, tomorrow, urk ... I drank too much..."

"If I don't see you here I'm coming looking for you!"

"You can come visit me anytime, darling!"

"Wa ha ha ha, lookit 'im blush!"

When he and Bernhardt were the only two left in the bar Ian tilted his head to the ceiling and allowed the goodbyes to ring in his ears. Before Herzberg he had never stayed in any town longer than three or four months, and often far less than that. He would move on either because his wanderlust drew him away or because the creeping madness that was always just behind him drove him in search of new experiences to bury himself in. Here in Herzberg he had discovered a new trade, a bustling and surprisingly close knit community, and for the first time in years he had emerged from the fog that had settled over his life long enough to actually make friends. He wondered if he had walked away from friends in those other towns and villages, where he often left without a word of goodbye to anyone, too deep in the fog to acknowledge the people around him.

Bernhardt, who was sweeping the floor, paused near Ian's table. "Going to be different when you're not around, uhm."

Ian regarded him with a slightly wavering eye. He was just this side of one too many, but his emotions were strangely tranquil. "Hmm?"

"Men like you, ahm, people like to gather around."

Ian snorted. "I'm not so great."

Bernhardt chuckled, a sound like someone drumming their palms on an empty fifty-five gallon barrel. "Says you. You absolutely have to leave then, uhm?"

"Ah."

The bartender cocked one enormous eyebrow. "Ah, yes, or Ah, no?"

Ian flashed him a cheeky grin. "Ah."

Bernhardt went back to sweeping, "accidentally" bumping Ian's chair as he passed. "It's closing time hmm. Get out of here."

Ian picked himself up off the floor where the bear-man's casual nudge had sent him sprawling. He dusted off his rear, picked up Teppy, who was passed out in an ashtray, put him on his shoulder and walked out of the bar.

Bernhardt watched Ian as he left and was surprised to see him stiffen and pause in the doorway, looking into the dark outside as though he had seen something there. He was about to call out to him and ask what was wrong when Ian shook his head, stepped into the night and disappeared. Bernhardt peeked out into the street but saw nothing of interest. With a shrug he returned to cleaning the floor.

The next two days passed in similar fashion. Ian worked during the day at the smithy and spent the evening at The Average Bear. Ezekiel begged off accompanying him both nights, claiming to be tired. Indeed, Ian noticed that the old man looked particularly fatigued the afternoon of the second day. He suspected it had to do with why he had been asked to stay since they had done no more work than usual otherwise.

The night of the second day Ian went to bed feeling restless and shaky. He awoke in the middle of the night. The shadows of the room loomed over him, a constricting presence. There was a clamor in his mind that caused him to grind his teeth and set his heart to aching. He paced the floor for hours while Teppy watched him worriedly from his pillow. When morning finally came he practically ran to the blacksmith. He could stay no longer.

Ezekiel met him at the entrance of the workshop. Ian was shocked to see that the dark skinned old man looked as bad as he felt. He had not bothered to look in a mirror that morning. They were probably a matching pair. Ezekiel held in his hands a long, cloth-wrapped object.

"Ye was looking rough when ye left yesterday," he said. "I figured I was outta time."

He unwrapped the cloth and Ian bit back a startled oath. Teppy squeaked and jumped up and down on his shoulder in agitated surprise. In Ezekiel's hands was what could only be described as a drill-lance. A heavy steel drill bit, twelve inches in diameter at the base and eighteen inches long, was mounted on a solid five foot shaft.

"What, I mean, how..." Ian began, then held up his hand to forestall any answer. "Why?"

Ezekiel nodded in satisfaction. "The right question. I heard it said that Simon's drill was his soul. So what was Simon without his drill? I asked myself that from the moment I knew for sure that yerself was yerself. I saw ye was lost, and I pondered upon whether I could do anything for ye, or even whether it were my business to do so.

Then one night an idea came to me. A stupid idea. I tried to put it aside, but it wasn't being put. Finally I decided it had to be done, an' this here tool is the result. I ain't never felt like an artisan or a master of my trade 'till right now. If I held ye no gratitude for anything else, that would be enough."

Ezekiel held out the lance and Ian, who had not always called himself Ian, took it from his hands and examined it cautiously, as though it might be dangerous. The early morning sunlight glinted off the polished tip of the drill and struck him in the eyes and suddenly he was nowhere he had ever seen before.

_He stood on an endless plain of unrelieved black. An infinite starry sky bloomed above him. On the air was a faint sound, a distant musical refrain that was like a million voices joined in ethereal harmony. Before him was a nondescript staircase that spiraled downward into unknown depths._

_A voice drifted upward, calling him._

_Simon!_

_Simon!_

_Simon!_

_Full of longing, full of wonder, he placed his foot on the first step._

_The stars blazed like living flames, their voices ringing in triumphant joy. They swirled and danced in the heavens. At the same time a terrible howling shook the ground. Something was forming on the horizon, a shapeless shadow. Its cry was full of ravenous hunger and bone-chilling hatred._

"What's wrong ... Ian?" Ezekiel asked.

Simon blinked and he was standing in front of Ezekiel's smithy just outside of Herzberg again. There were no singing stars or howling beasts. The morning sun defied these figments. He blew out a quavering breath. "Call me Simon," he said slowly.

"Done hiding it, are ye Simon?"

"I don't know. How many other people know?"

"Didn't talk to no one about it. I'm thinking Bernhardt has a good idea, and some of the sharper folk too. Yer hair is longer, and there be a different look in yer eyes, and most people only ever seen pictures of ye anyway, so might be that most believe ye when ye say yer name be Ian."

Simon wanted to explain that he had his reasons for wanting to remain anonymous, but could not find the words that sounded right. How does the greatest hero in the world (not a position he ever sought or desired) explain that he was going mad, hearing voices and seeing visions? Instead he nodded at Ezekiel, who stuck out his hand. Simon shook it firmly.

"Go and do what ye need to do," the old man told him. "I'll be keeping a chair 'aside my fire case you ever come by."

"I'll definitely return," Simon replied. Then he walked away. He had not gotten far when Ezekiel called out behind him.

"I almost forgot!" he exclaimed. "Give that handle a twist."

Simon did as he was told and the shaft unlocked in the middle and re-locked into a familiar crankshaft design. He spun the handle and was delighted by the high pitched whine of the drill. There was obviously a very complex gear system hidden within the shaft that converted each spin of the handle into an exponentially greater high-speed rotation.

"Don't worry 'bout busting it!" Ezekiel yelled. "I built it to last!"

Simon snapped the handle back into lance position and raised it over his head. Ezekiel understood the motion and grinned.

He stopped only to gather his belongings from the inn. The innkeeper refused to charge him for his final month. The entire time they spoke his eyes kept darting between Simon's face and the drill-lance. When he asked in a stuttering voice, "Are you, ruh-really...?" Simon smiled enigmatically at him and left the inn. Before the door shut behind him he heard an excited "WHOOP!"

"Ethel, Ethel, we been housin' a CELEB-RI-TY!"

The sun rose, the road opened before him, and the town of Herzberg faded behind him. By early evening he was halfway up the mountain and headed toward Snowfree Pass, the lowest point of clear passage across the Verdant Rise mountain range within ten kilometers. From there he would be able to look down the slopes and catch a last glimpse of Herzberg, the place that had been his home for almost a full year. It was a milestone he wanted to remember.

Night fell, but clouds moved in and covered the stars. Simon covered that last kilometer in nearly complete darkness. At the mouth of Snowfree Pass he turned and looked down the mountain. While the path he followed wound around many kilometers of impassable terrain the town was much closer as the crow flies. Perhaps five kilometers. He could clearly see lights in the windows, though he was not close enough to make out any people.

Standing there in the dark, with the crevice of Snowfree Pass yawning open and black behind him and the twinkling lights of Herzberg dimmed by distance before him, Simon felt lonelier than he had since he first walked away from his friends four years ago. Perhaps that was why when her voice rang loudly, insistently in his ears Simon leaned out as far as he could over the edge and screamed:

"**I'M HERE! NIA!"**

Her voice changed.

_Simon?_

And then fell silent.

Simon's heart thudded against his ribs so hard it hurt to breathe. In all the time he had listened to the voice in his head, from the very moment she had turned to memory in his arms, Nia had never been silent; softer sometimes, louder others, loud to the point of complete distraction, but never silent.

In that deafening silence Simon heard screams. For one heart-stopping moment he believed it was Nia who screamed. Then he realized he heard not one voice, but many. Suddenly, as though a thick cloak had been thrown over them, all the lights in Herzberg went out. The screams drifting up the slopes on the clear mountain air intensified.

Simon dropped straight down and hit the gravelly slope sliding. He did not bother with the path; it would only slow him down. He dashed headlong down the mountainside without regard for his safety, the drill-lance clutched tightly in his hands. The shadows stretched and groaned around him but he paid them no mind.

In minutes he was in Herzberg.

**. . . . . . . . . . . . .**

He was not known for his good ideas. Oh, he had plenty of ideas, and he made them work, but that did not mean they were good. However, among all the bad ideas he ever had this one stood out as a real stinker. No sane man attempts to ride a tigerwolf.

Of course, that was exactly what they told him.

"Ha ha, are you stupid!?"

"You're fulla crap!"

"Idiocy has its limits you know!"

So he responded:

"Hell with you guys! I'm gonna ride it!"

Which is how Kamina ended up in the middle of the wilds with a 3,000 pound tigerwolf chewing on his leg. Again. Let his guard down for one moment and the thing was back to trying to kill him. He landed a bone-rattling punch on the thing's nose and shook his leg free. It lunged at him and he commenced to pounding it to the ground with an explosive volley of left and right hooks.

"SHOW. SOME. RESPECT. TO. YOUR. BETTERS!!" he roared, punctuating each word with a thunderous blow.

When the massive beast was properly cowed and weeping silent tears of frustration Kamina took the opportunity to wrap some more bandages around his leg. He had bandages on his other leg too. And his arms. And around his stomach, chest, and head.

He was running out of bandages.

Normally even he would have abandoned this fool's errand days ago. He had ridden the tigerwolf, just like he said he would. It was good bragging material and it made no sense to tromp around in the wilds with no one to brag to except a pissed off ton and a half of clawed, furred, death-dealing ultimate predator. However, normal no longer applied.

He had been laying, beaten and exhausted, on top of the tigerwolf (who he was proud to say was even more beaten and exhausted) savoring his victory over the wild animal. It had been tough tracking it down and tougher still whipping it into submission, but what Kamina says, Kamina does. At that very moment the night sky turned to daylight and a silver star crested the horizon. It flew directly over his head, a scintillating rainbow vapor trailing behind. He was still new to this world and had not wrapped his mind around all the possibilities it presented but he had known immediately that the light was not just atmospheric phenomenon. It was a person. What was more, it felt as though it was someone he knew, or should know.

That had been the beginning of this little misadventure. He simply had to find that person in the sky who glowed with iridescent flames. That sense of familiarity bothered him and he could not put it aside. Riding the tigerwolf was not only many times faster than traveling on foot but also (ironically) safer. After all, no sane creature willingly tangled with a tigerwolf.

Kamina cinched up the bandages on his leg and hopped to his feet. He leapt atop his pouting and unwilling companion and sat cross-legged on its back. It was harder to balance that way, but it kept his legs further out of reach of those nasty teeth. At first the beast did not want to stand but Kamina prodded it sharply in the spine with his finger and it grudgingly got to its feet.

"Now _git_!"

The tigerwolf loped sullenly across the rolling plains in the direction the star-person had passed. It had now been almost two days since he saw the light in the sky and Kamina was beginning to worry. If the person had changed course at any time he could be going the wrong way entirely.

Busily scouring the sky for any sign that might point him in the right direction Kamina did not notice the gray and white tabby cat running alongside them until it spoke his name.

"Kami-nya! Hey, Kami-nya!"

Kamina poked the tigerwolf until it stopped running. It turned to look at him and he gave it a 'Be good or else!' glare. It snorted and shook its head rebelliously, but settled down to rest without further antics.

Kamina and the cat stared at each other for a minute.

"Oh," said Kamina. "A talking dog."

"I'M A CAT!! A CAT!! AND YOU KNOW IT!" the tabby screeched.

Kamina squinted at it. "Ah, you're right. You are a cat."

The cat spat and hissed and stalked around in a circle. When it finished its impromptu temper tantrum it gave him a level glare. "I wouldn't be here if Bastet had not sent me to find you."

"Who's Bastet?"

"The Queen of Cats, you Neanderthal."

"Hmm ... is she hot?"

With a strangled shriek of fury the tabby flew at Kamina's face with claws extended.

"YEEEEOOOOWWWWL!!"

"OY OY! STAY AWAY FROM MY EYES YOU DEMON!!"

Kamina flung the tabby away and the two glared at each other.

"She's a cat you fool! She's not interested in humans!"

"If she's not interested then why are you here?"

The tabby ground its teeth audibly. "You're searching for the Dreamer aren't you?"

"The Dreamer?"

"She flew across the sky two days ago."

Kamina's glare turned to one of suspicion. "Why would the Queen of Cats care if I was looking for her?"

"Bastet doesn't care one bit about you. She's interested in the Dreamer. She's instructed me to lead you to her."

Now Kamina was really suspicious. "If you know where she is then you don't need me. What aren't you telling me?"

The tabby grimaced. "You're not as thick as I believed. You're not the only one seeking the Dreamer. So I'll need your help once we find her."

"You're still skipping a part. Who is it that the might – be – hot – might – be – not Queen of Cats is so worried about?"

The tabby hesitated, obviously torn.

"Garm."

Kamina's eyes widened. Even he knew of Garm, the Guardian of the Gates of the Dead. He gave a low whistle. "This is getting interesting. Now I really want to find this Dreamer-person."

The tabby looked at him like he had grown another head. "Garm is after her, _Garm you understand_, and you still want to find her?" He looked at the tigerwolf Kamina was riding. "Well, maybe that's not so surprising. You're obviously insane."

"Hop aboard Stripes!" Kamina cried. He pointed at the tigerwolf's head. "You can sit here and be navigator!"

"I'm not climbing up there!" the tabby screeched. "And my name is not Stripes!"

"Oh, that's right. Of course you'd be nervous. I forgot to introduce you two. Stripes, this is Wimpy," Kamina said pointing to the tigerwolf. He pointed at the tabby. "Wimpy, Stripes. Now you two are good friends. Hop up here and let's go!"

The tigerwolf gave the tabby a forlorn look that had 'I surrender' written all over it. The tabby stared back and forth between the man and the beast with its mouth hanging open in disbelief, finally deciding both were basket cases. Unable to disobey his queen's order, he supposed he was a basket case by association. He jumped onto the tigerwolf's head and gestured with his paw. "Northeast, Kami-nya!"

"Right! Let's go Wimpy!" Kamina yelled while thumping his heels on the tigerwolf's flanks. The beast leapt up and resuming running.

They set a relentless pace for more than a day, the tigerwolf's powerful strides showing no signs of fatigue despite the fact that it had been either running or fighting for three days in a row. The terrain became bleaker and bleaker the further north they went and Kamina strained his memory over the geography of this region. He had only seen a map of this world a few times, but there were several areas that even the newest of sojourners into this strange place took note of. His first encounter with the tigerwolf occurred in the Forbidden Lands. He assumed "Forbidden" meant it was no place for pansies. Real men went where they wanted. On their current course...

"We're going to come pretty close to Leng aren't we?" he asked the tabby.

"Yes," the cat replied gravely. "There is a black ocean that touches the cold northeastern coasts of the North and East. Bastet has Foretold that we will find the Dreamer there."

"Foretold, huh? I don't like the sound of that."

The cat looked puzzled at that. "Why not?"

"Stripes, how would you like it if someone told you what you were gonna decide to do before you decided to do it? I don't like it one bit."

"I can see your point. And my name isn't Stripes. It's Nemo."

Kamina leaned forward and examined Nemo closely. "Hmm. Hmmmm."

"What?"

"You look more like a 'Stripes' to me, but whatever. Nemo it is."

Nemo snorted and flicked his tail dismissively. He sat silently atop the tigerwolf's massive head for several minutes, staring intently toward the gloom-gripped horizon. When next he spoke it was quiet and pensive. "Bastet can Foretell many things. Rarely is something hidden from her. There is a darkness in her Vision that surrounds this Dreamer. The same darkness shrouds you, Kami-nya. She cannot see your future, nor any future which you may influence. There are other spots of darkness, other people and other things that escape her Sight. More now than there has ever been before. This is why she sent me to you."

Nemo turned to face Kamina, his golden eyes glowing in the gathering darkness, "Bastet believes you will be part of a great upheaval in this world. Now that I have met you, I begin to believe as well. We must find the Dreamer before Garm does and bring her to Bastet. She will be safe from his influence there."

As he spoke they crested a rolling rise and Kamina saw a vast blackness stretching before them. It took him a moment to discern that the surface of the blackness was rippling like water.

"We are here," Nemo intoned gravely. "The Black Sea."

Where the ebon water met the shore it lapped lazily over jet-black sand that glittered like crushed obsidian. There was no visible horizon. The darkness of the water and the sky blended together seamlessly and only the appearance of strangely oriented stars broke the illusion that the sea was stretching over their heads and all around them. Seeing those stars Kamina suddenly realized that it was only mid-afternoon, yet the sky was midnight black. Looking over his shoulder he spotted the sun still hanging in the sky, but it was a dim gray color and its light seemed to be swallowed entirely by invisible forces.

"Charming place," he muttered.

"Indeed," Nemo replied. "We must find the Dreamer. She must be nearby, for Bastet only said that we must reach the Black Sea."

Kamina patted Wimpy on the shoulder and the big cat loped the last couple hundred meters to the shore. Once there Kamina dismounted and knelt in the sand. He picked up a handful and rolled it in his palm. It tingled against his skin as though charged with electricity and was strangely heavy. He eyed the water warily and did not dare to touch it. The very sight of it was bad enough. Even in the shallows it was completely opaque.

"So why is Garm after the Dreamer," he asked Nemo. The cat was ginger-stepping on the black sand, grimacing each time he put a paw down.

"Bastet does not know," Nemo replied. "Only speculation she said she would be able to confirm once she has met the Dreamer face to face and heard her story."

"Well that's fine with me," Kamina said brightly. "Maybe we'll get lucky and run into him. I'll whip him like I whipped Wimpy." Wimpy covered his eyes with his paws in shame.

Nemo fought the urge to weep in despair. This man would change the world? "Sane people don't call that luck," he snapped at Kamina, but the tattooed man was already walking down the beach with his hand cocked theatrically over his eyes as though scanning the distance. Nemo sighed and began to follow when suddenly Kamina let out a shout.

"Hey, I think I see something!" he yelled over his shoulder as he dashed away.

Far up the beach, nearly at the limit of his eyesight, was an incongruous spot of pale white against the otherwise unrelieved black. As he drew closer Kamina could see that it was a person lying on the dark sand.

He stopped running ten paces from her. The woman lay naked on the black sand, delicate in every line and curve, her skin gleaming alabaster white even in the feeble gray sunlight. Her hair held a hypnotizing iridescence, nearly white in the highlights, a pale and beautiful yellow in the mid-tones, and shimmering blue in the shadow. The whole extravagant length of it was plastered to her body with water that dripped crystal clear onto the obsidian sand. Kamina had to run that thought through his head several times before he understood its significance. He looked to where her feet rested in the surf. Where the stygian water touched her it became as clear and pure as the most transparent glass. His eyes widened as the sand beneath her began to change as well; first to gray, then to shining white.

As he stood there uncertain what exactly he should do the woman began to stir. She climbed shakily to her feet and teetered precariously for a moment before finding her balance. Kamina took a hesitant step forward and his movement drew her attention. She turned and smiled brightly at him, seeming either unaware of or unconcerned with her state of undress.

"Greetings," she said in a lilting, sing-song voice. "My name is Nia."

She looked into his eyes expectantly, waiting for a response. Her eyes were an amazing electric blue set with the most peculiar and fantastic pupils he had ever seen. They were cross shaped and startlingly pink. Overall they were singularly mesmerizing and Kamina found it hard to reply to her.

Suddenly she clapped her hands together excitedly in front of her breasts and leaned toward him. "I know you!" she cried breathlessly. "You are..."

Kamina caught her as her eyes rolled back and she toppled forward. He wrapped her gently in his cape and slid an arm beneath her legs to lift her against his chest. Her breathing tickled reassuringly against his collarbone. She was only sleeping.

"It's good to finally meet you, Nia," he said to the slumbering woman. The strange sense of familiarity he felt was now explained. He _did_ know this woman, though this was their first meeting. He turned and found Wimpy and Nemo sitting a few feet away, both staring in wonder at the beautiful Dreamer.

As he carefully arranged her in front of him on Wimpy's back Kamina took another close look at her elegant profile and laughed.

"Hehe, Simon you sly dog!"


	4. The First Grain of Sand

Perchance to Dream

Chapter 3

The First Grain of Sand

* * *

_The wind touched the sail and the ship  
Moved the ocean  
The wind from the storm set the course she would take  
From a journey to nowhere towards a soul on the ocean  
From the wake of Magellan to Magellan's wake_

_Savatage_

_The Hourglass_

* * *

The skritch-skratch of his ballpoint pen was the only sound that broke the midnight silence as Dayakka sat in his tiny study. The room was actually a walk-in closet in what was meant to be the master bedroom of his house, but upon moving in Kiyoh had chosen one of the smaller rooms instead; one with a breathtaking view of New Kamina City. Their house was built on a small hill near the edge of the city and at night the city lights flickered and glowed beneath them like a multicolored ocean. Kiyoh always said that looking at the city reminded her of how far they had come; how much their blood and sweat and tears had bought them. Her poetic appreciation of their brave new world was just one more reason that Dayakka considered his wife, without contest or doubt, the best wife in the universe.

Dayakka had at first attempted to use the master bedroom as his study, feeling for a while a sense of self-importance in its luxurious spaciousness. The good things in life had begun to encroach upon his office domain however, piles and piles of odds and ends, gifts and obsolete purchases, boxes and papers stacking up and up, slowly filling the room until only a few tiny trails wound through the mess. When Dayakka could no longer lean back in his comfy, double padded office chair (made especially for middle-aged behinds) he gave up the room as a bad job and moved his desk into the closet under the assumption that the much smaller space would be easier to keep clean. He had mostly succeeded at the task, the only stacks of papers along the walls the ones that pertained to his job. Only to the left and right of the doorway were there any exceptions, and there a few stacks of shoeboxes, golf clubs, and old political signage indicated that the master bedroom, now the master storeroom, was expanding its influence.

As the clock ticked its way past two in the morning he scribbled furiously on piles of inventory papers, signing here, rejecting there, and adding up notes to be used for next month's order forms. Nearby a farmer's almanac laid open, its pages covered so completely with red ink notes and calculations that it looked like the battered, feathered edged book was bleeding. The heat from the single incandescent lamp which provided him light drew a light sheen of sweat from his forehead, and he knew he smelled just a little ripe. He had been working since early in the afternoon, having put off far too much for far too long (standard operating procedure, really), and the poorly ventilated closet was just shy of uncomfortably warm. A standing fan tucked against the wall behind him stood quiet and forlorn, having broken down just the day before. He absently made a note on a small piece of scratch paper to replace the fan tomorrow. Returning to his work he fell into a rhythmic pattern of turn page, write, make note, turn page write, make note as the clock ticked steadily on. Sometime after three in the morning his pen fell from limp fingers and Dayakka dozed uneasily at his desk. His nose crinkled in his sleep, as though he smelled something he disliked.

His daughter's wails ripped him from disquieting dreams about tall, black mountains. He shot straight up in the air, banging his thighs on the underside of his desk in his haste to be moving. He tripped over his overly comfy office chair and sprawled full on the floor. Beyond the pale yellow light cast outside the closet door by the solitary lamp the stacks of junk loomed threateningly.

_like black mountains_

He scrambled to his feet at the sound of another wail, loud in his ears even though separated by several walls. Rushing like a bull through the storeroom Dayakka tipped over piles of junk, and as they scattered on the floor and across other piles of junk he heard something shriek. He thought he had probably broken something he really wanted to keep, but at the moment such worries were unimportant. The hallway between the storeroom and his daughter's bedroom seemed to stretch forever, and he felt like he was running in slow motion. Shadows crept dangerously along the walls and he imagined that they were fingers reaching out to snare his legs and keep him from his daughter's side. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he reached his daughter's door and flung it open, his heart pounding so heavily in his chest that he was sure it would explode and leave him dead at her feet.

From this distance her screams seemed unbelievably loud and as he rushed to her bedside Dayakka had to consciously pull his hands away from his ears in order to lift his little girl. She was babbling incoherently at a volume that frightened him badly. Her vocal chords should have already failed her, yet, if anything, she became louder still once he had picked her up. Hugging her close and rocking back and forth Dayakka attempted to quiet her to no avail. His fear doubled when he realized that despite her thrashing and screaming, little Anne was sound asleep. Suddenly her garbled speech became comprehensible and chills pinched the flesh on his back, like spiders skittering in neat rows.

"Forever! Forever! I can see forever! A...no! No! A Crawling Man! Crawling on the stars! Oh, go away! Go away bad man!"

Then she tilted her head back and opened her jaws so wide he heard the joints pop, and what emerged from her was not a scream, or a shriek, or a wail, or anything Dayakka had ever heard. It was like a gargantuan violin played with an iron bow, or a million razor blades dragging across a colossal chalkboard. It was louder and shriller than anything he had ever heard, or imagined to hear, and it vibrated inside his head so powerfully he thought he felt even the fluid in his eyes bubbling. The window above her bed shattered into tiny shards which rained down on their heads and Dayakka bent over his daughter's quivering body to protect her. Her body jerked and rattled beneath him and as she screamed into his shoulder he felt shaken deep into his bones, until he was numb, until he felt as though he were floating. Terror wrapped around him like a warm, thick blanket and Dayakka helplessly felt himself slipping away. At that moment Anne grew mercifully quiet.

Sitting up slowly in her bed Dayakka blinked dazedly, trying to regain his composure. He checked his daughter's pulse fearfully, but did not need to. She was breathing in short gasps and her eyes were rolled upward, staring, but she was not awake. Gradually her breathing returned to normal and her eyes drifted shut. Dayakka sat with her for a long time, gently brushing the glass from her hair and alternately staring at the dim lines of her round face and straining his eyes out into the darkness beyond the broken window. He could not comprehend what had just happened. Even in the still dark he could feel a heavy weight of dread that seemed to have no source. As his ears stopped ringing from his daughter's piercing cries he realized that despite the incredible noise Anne had been making, his wife had not appeared. She was just down the hall, and he had never known her to be a heavy sleeper.

Filled with a sudden sense of urgency Dayakka sprang from the bed and nearly wrenched his back due to his awkward position. He did not put Anne down. He had no intention of letting her out of his sight. Rushing down the hallway he could see again how _dark_ the shadows seemed, how evil the house he had built so many happy memories in now felt, and when he reached the door to his bedroom he simply kicked it in rather bother shifting Anne around in his arms to open it.

Kiyoh lay on her side of the bed, a barely discernable lump in a room far too dark. Dayakka dashed to the bed and gently laid Anne at the foot before going to his wife's side. She was murmuring something and as he turned on the bedside lamp he briefly thought that what had happened in his daughter's room had been little more than a hallucination caused by exhaustion. She had a bad dream, and in a tired and irrational mental state he had blown it out of proportion. That comforting interpretation was laid to rest by the pale lamplight.

Kiyoh's hands were clapped against her face, her fingers pulling at the skin as though she meant to pull it off. Her white pillow was dark crimson with blood. She, like Anne, was deeply asleep. With a strangled cry of horror Dayakka pried his wife's hands from her face. There were gouges in her cheeks from the press of her fingers, but that was not where the blood came from. Twin crimson streams trickled from her nose steadily, dribbling down the right side of her face and soaking into her pillow. She did not respond when he shook her, even when he shook her hard enough to upset the table lamp, so Dayakka used wadded up tissue to stem the flow of blood as best as he was able and then lifted her from the mattress. It was not until he was holding her in his arms that he realized he did not know what he planned to do.

Standing there in the strange shadows cast by the flickering table lamp lying on the floor Dayakka held completely still and listened. Since awakening to his daughter's screams he had sensed the unnerving wrongness in the air but it was not until his family was with him, within arm's reach that he could finally settle himself enough to try and determine exactly _what_ was making him so uneasy.

The lamp flickered weakly. Darkness, dim light, darkness again. The thunderous pounding of his own heart and the desiccated click of swallowing in a dry throat. Was there anything there?

Something shuffled outside the window. From the opposite wall sounded a sibilant hiss, as though something had brushed lightly against the outside of the house. A tinkling sound, strangely musical from down the hallway. The broken window in Anne's room. Something was there, maybe already coming inside the house through the shattered window. The thought crossed his mind that it could be radicals or revolutionaries, come to take hostage a government official. Something dark inside him laughed at that, low and hoarse. He knew somehow that whatever stalked outside his home was neither human nor beastman. He needed to leave, immediately.

He ripped the blanket and sheets off the bed and opened the drawer on the bedside table, taking out a small utility knife. Extending the razor blade he cut the fabric into long strips and quickly tied Anne to her mother's back. Getting Kiyoh secured to his own back was a much more trying ordeal but he managed. He ignored the protests his knees gave as he rose from his crouch and strode quickly to the closet. He found the grip hidden beneath the shelf against the back wall and pulled, revealing a hidden cabinet. Inside were things that he had thought would forever be relics of his past.

First he withdrew a heavily modified submachine gun that was so old that the manufacturer's stamp had been all but worn away. Regardless of age, it had been retuned to be a Ganman stopper and with a firing rate of 1000 rounds per minute it could empty it's 30 round clip in matter of seconds, producing a hail of bullets that did not resemble individual shots so much as a solid stream of roaring, armor piercing metal. Its accuracy was non-existent outside of 50 meters, but one time in a hair raising fight against a Ganman he had fallen hard and looked up to see a gigantic foot descending on him. He had been wielding this very weapon and its fury had pierced both the foot and the cockpit of the robotic monstrosity, killing the pilot instantly and saving his life. Next he took out two heavy caliber pistols and strapped them to his waist. Finally he hefted a pump action shotgun off its rack. The blue-black gun metal gleamed faintly in the darkness as he levered a shell into the breach. This shotgun had once belonged to Kittan, and he could remember seeing him use it in the streets of Kamina City many years ago, firing bravely but futilely at the strange machines of the Anti-Spirals.

The broken glass down the hallway chimed louder, and then came a muffled thump. Gripping the shotgun tightly Dayakka sucked a deep, preparatory breath. "If you're watching me, Kittan ol' buddy, I could use some of your bravado," he whispered.

He crept to the bedroom door and peered into the dark hallway. Something large was moving at the other end, outside Anne's room. It crawled into the hall in a manner that suggested it was multi-legged or multi-segmented or multi-_something._ Dayakka was suddenly glad that the darkness concealed the details. He thought that if he actually got a good look at the thing that he might lose reason altogether. The door to the kitchen was halfway down the hall and it was the only way out of the house. The creature bumped against the walls at the far end, tap tapping at them with some kind of appendage. The warm blanket of terror was drifting softly about him again, wrapping in a slowly tightening cocoon. The air that entered his mouth seemed to cling thick and sticky to his throat. His chest burned with the agony of fear.

He ducked back into the bedroom and leaned heavily on the wall, trying to calm down. He was breathing too quickly. A pins and needles sensation began creeping into his hands and feet and the room began to twirl slowly. He fell to his knees with an audible thump. There was a scuttling sound from the hallway. A foul smell, mausoleum air, slaughterhouse refuse, wafted through the doorway and Dayakka's vision began to fade.

Just as the room became as black as the nights in the underground village he grew up in Dayakka saw a blazing golden light. It entered his drooping eyes, pierced the deadly blanket, and drew him back. The bedroom snapped back into focus, but Dayakka stared only at the shotgun in his hands. The barrel glowed like fire, like the sun. He could see the bones in his hands outlined in red as the light permeated his body.

The lamp beside the bed flickered dim, and the light was gone. It flickered back on and Dayakka realized that he had only seen the lamplight reflected on the gun barrel. No blazing light, just a weak yellow glow, a hallucination, yet he no longer felt the faintest quivering of fear. In his mind's eye he saw Kittan on the streets of Kamina City again, brash, brazen. Had he not stood with braver men against threats more terrifying? Had he not been one of those brave men?

He kicked to his feet. The precious burden he carried on his back seemed light, so light. He did not bother peeking around the door; he just marched into the hallway. The thing was nearly on top of him, between him and the kitchen door. It immediately let out a warbling, insectile scream and leaped at him. Dayakka pulled the trigger and the shotgun roared. An invisible hand flung the creature onto its back. It scrambled up and the shotgun roared again. Bits of chitinous material sprayed clickety-clack against the walls. The thing collapsed to the floor, keening miserably. Dayakka approached it, avoiding the flailing limbs, and pressed the barrel into the wound the first two shots had torn in the hard exoskeleton. The final shot misted his pants with foul smelling gore. He stepped over it and into the kitchen as the sound of breaking glass rang around the house. Either his shots or the wretched thing's screams had drawn others.

Something was trying to crawl through the kitchen window. In the near total darkness Dayakka could only see the vaguest of forms. He fired a blast into the center of the clambering mass and in the muzzle flash saw a sight he knew he would never be able to describe. It was an insect, it was a pattern, it was something he was certain he had seen before, and like nothing he had ever imagined. It fell away from the window squealing. He pushed it from his mind.

More glass shattered, and a crash sounded behind him as he ran toward the front door. He squeezed off two quick shots at the door handle before he reached it and kicked it open. A dark shape was reeling away from the doorstep as he emerged into the yard, obviously hit. He paid it no attention and dashed down the hill toward the city. It took a moment to realize that the flickering lights from the city were not the comforting lights Kiyoh loved to watch so much. The city was on fire.

Clattering shadows converged on him from all sides as he descended the hill. The shotgun barked its ultimatum again and again. When the ammo was spent he threw the gun on the ground. He had no more use for it. He remembered now. Kittan, like Simon and Kamina, had not carried his weapons in his hands. He carried his weapons in his heart.

He unslung the nameless submachine gun and sawed a towering figure in half with a howling blade of bullets. More and more swarmed around him. He was still at least three hundred meters from the city proper and whatever protection it might or might not offer. Like a scythe the submachine gun harvested row upon row of stinking corpses. He was wet to the knees with the ichor they bled. When he was out of clips he threw it aside and drew his pistols. Dayakka did not remember loading them with tracer ammunition, yet the bullets radiated living green fire. Creatures he was sure he had missed burst into flames in the bullets' wake. All around him horrifying carcasses burned green.

One hundred meters from the city.

But there were so many.

* * *

Samantha Brown's final regret was that she had not managed to seduce Simon of Jeeha Village. A really silly regret, true, but at the moment it was the only thing on her mind. After all, she had the hot-pants for him when he was still "Ian." That counted for something right?

Her bare feet slapped painfully on the cobbled street as she ran. The streetlamps were out and everything was so _dark._ Something big skittered behind her, coming for her. She thought she heard it whisper her name. With a shriek she clapped her hands to her ears and ran all the harder and tried not to think of what would about to happen. The things had eaten her mother.

She had been drawn from her bed by the old woman's death-rattle. Her mother's room had been filled with a roiling mass of _things,_ all fighting over bloody scraps of the woman who bore and raised her. They had paid no attention when Samantha fled screaming into the night, but another had quickly picked up her trail. Soon...

A gargantuan force struck her in the back and she tumbled onto the street. Pressure bore down on her right arm, where some kind of appendage pinned her to the ground. A burning building a block away cast a gasping ginger glow in which that alien limb seemed to writhe. She dared not look over her shoulder. She closed her eyes. She heard the scratch and clack as it shifted its weight, and a creaking sound. Was the killing blow already descending? Or would it...would it just begin to eat? She would bite off her tongue. The quicker she bled to death the better.

Suddenly she was flipped violently over onto her back. She immediately drew into a ball and clenched her teeth, but nothing happened. She heard a shout and opened her eyes.

In the dim, bleeding-sepia toned night two figures clashed. One twisted and writhed, half again as tall as Bernhardt, who was the biggest man in town. Its outline was all angles and spines, monstrous. The other appeared to be a man, but she could not fathom how he could really be human, because he was fighting with the beast...and winning.

He wielded a lance the likes of which she had never seen before, with an enormously heavy looking head. The creature flailed and charged at him but with sweeping blows he turned aside every attack and pushed against the revolting body, battering it, forcing it to retreat. The creature stumbled and with a cry he leapt atop it and stood firm upon its back regardless of how it thrashed and bucked. He raised the lance high above his head and struck with it. There was a loud crack but the lance did not pierce. Undeterred the man gave the shaft a quick twist and it became a crankshaft. He spun the shaft and the night was split with a massive report as the creature's carapace burst open. The man did not stop there; he drove further, drilling and drilling. Fountains of gore sprayed upward in long, ropey strands. Roaring like a lion he relentlessly bore the screeching fiend to the ground.

As the monstrosity shivered out its final moments the man stepped from its back and strode to where Samantha still sat, frozen in awe by the ferocity of the moment. He knelt before her. Even at this distance the feeble light only illuminated his outline, but his eyes shined like lamps in the darkness of his face. They were so incredibly bright.

"Samantha, can you stand?" he asked.

She could not; her legs would not move, but all she heard was "Samantha...stand." So she did. The quiet command in his voice seemed to still her quaking knees and put strength in her stomach. "Ian..."

Those brilliant eyes, now scanning the deeper shadows, ceased their roaming for a moment and locked onto hers.

"Sorry, Samantha. It's Simon now," he said, and she understood that she really had missed her chance. Ian might have been available, had she been more serious about it, but Simon belonged to Nia; everyone knew that.

"What can I do?" she asked.

He took her by the hand and led her toward the burning building. "They don't like the light," he told her tersely. "Stay near the fire and they won't bother you. Marv is there already." Sure enough she could see a figure huddled on the sidewalk as close as the heat would allow.

Marv leaped to his feet as they approached and ran to meet them. He seemed to want to help but did not know how, so he ended up dancing nervously from one foot to another trying to babble some thing or another. Simon silenced him with an upraised hand and then approached the fire. Samantha saw that it had been Henrietta's flower shop. He ducked through the smoking doorway and Samantha raised her voice to shout at him, but before she could he had already reappeared carrying what looked like a flaming bundle of flowers. He rushed past them to Henrietta's house, which was right next to her shop, and kicked in the door. He went inside and when he came back out he was no longer holding his makeshift torch. Light was already dancing inside the front windows of the house.

"Henrietta won't be needing her house anymore," he said by way of explanation, and Samantha felt tears welling up in her eyes even though she had not exactly been close friends with the woman. Simon tilted his head toward the sky and stood very still. Suddenly Samantha realized that she could hear distant, lonely screams, seemingly coming from every direction. She shrank back toward the fire. "You two stay here," Simon told them both. "I'll be sending more people. There's no need to burn the whole town, but if you even think some of those things are nearby, set something else on fire."

Marv and Samantha both nodded vigorously, and Simon dashed off into the night. Within minutes people began to arrive. Some came running so fast they tripped every other step, others limped, others crawled. Some came carrying friends or family, emerging from the darkness with white-faced looks of shock. As the crowd grew larger Samantha began to see movement in the shadows at the ends of the street and in the black spaces between buildings. The press of people was as close as anyone could stand to the burning house and flower shop, but still the edge of the crowd grew closer to the limits of the firelight. Even as she saw this she noticed Marv rushing out from between the two burning buildings, red-faced from the heat and struggling with two trash bins, one of them already on fire. He kept jerking his hand away from the burning one and waving it in a futile effort to keep it from being singed. Samantha hurried to his side and helped him push the bins into the road where they dumped them into a pile. Some of the trash was non-flammable, but most of it caught. Soon the circle of light had extended a bit, if only temporarily.

Remembering Simon's admonition that it was unnecessary to burn the whole town, Samantha began looking for other things to use. The picket fence in front of Henrietta's house was made of wood. She approached a group of young men who were talking a little too loudly and too quickly about some card game of all things. Their faces were the color of ash and their limbs trembled. They seemed on the verge of violence. Throwing her arms around two of them she drew them close as she leaned into their circle. She realized that she recognized a few of them, and not a single one was old enough to drink. Well, that was fine.

"Say fellas," she chirped as she wiggled a bit so that the two boys she was hugging, whose cheeks were mashed against her breasts, went suddenly still. "I'm looking for a few strong arms to give me a hand pulling up this fence." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder and tossed her chest a bit gratuitously and was pleased to see them nod dumbly. A few minutes later several new fires burned in the streets and the darkness was pushed back further. From outside the light there was a chorus of frustrated cries. Samantha saw no more movement after that. Still she went from group to group, recruiting men and women to help her spread and tend more fires. She saw Marv doing the same and when she gave him a thumbs up he seemed strangely embarrassed. Samantha grinned. She might not be able to fight directly against whatever horrors were stalking them in the dark, but a woman had her own kind of weapons, and she was going to use them.

* * *

Simon plunged from one nightmare to another. In the murky streets there was no time to prioritize or make decisions. He could not think of who was cheeriest when they had greeted him in the morning; which little boy was most humorous in his childish grandstanding; which little girl was cutest when showing off a new dress. He sprinted from one scream to the next, not bothering trying to discern to whose aid he was rushing; just picking the closest and praying the ones he ignored could hold on. Sometimes he arrived in time, sometimes he did not. It did not take many failures before he became aware that his mad dash through the blood soaked streets was accompanied by a terrible howling. He was distantly conscious that the sound emerged from his own throat, but he could not stop it. It needed to come out.

At last he was forced to stop running. He stood in the middle of the street, mouth clamped tightly shut to momentarily bottle up the rage that still demanded release. He could not hear any more screams. The black silence stretched on and on and soon he began to wish the screams would begin again. As horrifying as they were, at least they told him someone yet lived. Tears stung his eyes as the awful, awful quiet closed tight-fisted around his heart. How many had he sent to safety? The barest fraction of the town's population. Around him the shadows began to squirm. Seeking fresh prey the things surrounded him, but hesitated to attack. It seemed they were smart enough to recognize death when they saw it. Not smart enough to run from it, though.

Relinquishing all reason Simon let the howl ring out from deep inside him and charged into the yawning dark of the alleyways, where teeth gnashed, bristling legs beat around his body, and unnamable objects foul and slick groped and stabbed. The whine of his lance sang death in a sphere around him without pause, drawing founts of gore and strange body parts wherever it passed. Inwardly he cried out in anguish for Ezekiel. He had not found the old blacksmith anywhere and he must certainly be dead. He waded deeper and deeper in, until it seemed that he must surely emerge into the street on the other side, yet the living, gnawing corridor appeared to stretch on and on, growing thicker underfoot with the gelatinous residue of hundreds of dead horrors. He felt the corridor closing behind him as more rushed in, hungry and eager, but did not care. He had felt this kind of reckless anger before and knew that he was treading a perilous path but could see no other way to placate the relentless agony of fury that burned in his chest.

Colors danced at the corners of his vision, or was it blackness that sauntered there? A terrific impact rang against his ribs; he was certain he had blocked that attack. But no, there was his lance, far out of line and moving slowly, so slowly. Something scaly was pressed against his cheek. He was no longer in a corridor but in a cell; a tiny cell with no bars or windows, just legs and teeth and claws. He beat back the walls that closed inexorably inward, but when one wall retreated the one behind advanced. A harsh stinging in his knees informed him that he was kneeling, but he did not remember going down. The lance was a torturous weight in his hands. It was over.

Light crashed over him, blasting his darkened eyes and leaving violet phantoms behind. He was yanked forward into a glowing doorway that smelled of sawdust and alcohol. Thunderous explosions sounded above his head, ringing his ears. When at last both his ears and eyes had recovered from stimulus overload he looked up into two faces he had thought he would never see again.

"Ian, you're a sight for sore eyes, uhum," rumbled Bernhardt.

"I's expecting ye to use that lance fer drillin' rocks, but ye're using it to drill bugs, aha!" Ezekiel exclaimed.

"It's Simon now," Simon mumbled. He looked past the expectant faces of the two men and found himself inside Bernhardt's bar ... with at least 20 other people. Tables were nailed against the windows and piled against the doors, and the people were sitting in the middle of the floor passing food and whiskey around and helping each other bandage wounds. Freddie Gaul was standing just behind Bernhardt packing fresh black powder into and ancient looking gun. The fact that smoke was still rising from the barrels did not seem to bother him as he eagerly poured more of the combustible powder.

Simon turned back to Bernhardt and Ezekiel and said the only thing that came to mind.

"Uh...I'm confused."

"That be a common condition tonight," Ezekiel murmured. "Now come away from that door so we can block it back up. We heard ye hollerin' outside and nearly dinna clear away the barricade in time to pull ye in."

Simon climbed slowly to his feet and staggered into the bar as Bernhardt and Ezekiel piled tables and chairs against the door, which was already thumping as the things outside scratched at it curiously. They seemed unwilling to outright break in, perhaps because of the light.

He sat down against the bar and shut his eyes. Not more than a few seconds later he noticed how very quiet it had become. He opened his eyes to find every person in the room looking at him, even Ezekiel and Bernhardt. He knew the expression. They were looking for a leader.

Four years ago he had walked away from all that he knew, all his responsibilities. He wanted to sink, to _disappear_, as Nia had disappeared. In a way he was somewhat glad she had not been around to see it. After all, it was exactly what she had told him not to do. In fact, now that he thought about it, it may have been the only words she had ever spoken that he had not listened to.

_Well, time to start listening._


End file.
